


maladjustments

by lipsticksunrise



Series: murder boyfriends [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Death, Earth C (Homestuck), Established Relationship, Guns, M/M, Sexual Violence, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-28
Updated: 2020-01-28
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:21:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22444021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lipsticksunrise/pseuds/lipsticksunrise
Summary: “Are you -”“Shh,” you say. “Yes, if this is what you want, but you have to get it into that thick skull of yours that it’s not going to last first, okay?”Sometimes, the only way to show your boyfriend that you care about him is to kill him.
Relationships: Jake English/Dirk Strider
Series: murder boyfriends [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1626889
Comments: 10
Kudos: 48





	maladjustments

**Author's Note:**

> this is pretty different from my usual sort of thing, but here you go! also, despite the themes this deals with, there's not any gore until one vague reference in the last sentence, if you were wondering. enjoy!

The first time it happens is just eight months after the end of the game. The dust has settled into a rather pleasant life for you - a modest house on the outskirts of the human kingdom and a second chance with Dirk, who, speak of the devil, should be coming up for dinner right about, uh, five minutes ago.

You sigh and give the stir fry sizzling on the stove a conspiratorial eye roll. Dinner is at six every night and has been for eight months now; you really don’t know why it’s so hard for Dirk to just show up on time, but you suppose that’s just how he is. He gets so tied up in his work, especially these past couple of weeks, and while you’ve been trying not to let your relationship suffer for it, you’ve been falling asleep alone more nights than not as of late. It does something to your chest. Now that you have Dirk, you have no intention of letting him go.

But that’s all by the by, right now the only iron that’s really in danger of burning is the stir fry and the fact that Dirk is nowhere to be found. You switch off the oven burner and head out of the kitchen and downstairs into Dirk’s workshop. 

It’s quiet, much quieter than the sounds of metalworking usually lend themself to being, and you can’t help the tinge of worry that tugs at you, like a kid tugging at their mom’s shirt in the mall. Turn around, Mommy, there’s a man on fire back there, turn around, turn around, look and see and - gadzooks, you’ve been spending too much time listening to Dirk critique Rose’s poetry lately. 

“Dirk?” you call. If your chipper tone indicates nothing wrong, there’s nothing wrong. Why would there be anything wrong? “You’re going to work yourself half to death down here, you know, and besides, dinner’s ready.”

There’s no answer. Dirk’s current project, some sort of new bot that you have not yet been allowed to hear anything about, stands tall under a heavy beige tarp. That’s strange; why isn’t he working on it? The late evening light pouring in through the windows casts strange shadows through the shelves and racks of machinery all across the room. It might be creepy if, well, you hadn’t grown up alone on an island filled with monsters. There’s not much that scares you, now. 

“Dirk? You still down here, plum?”

No answer again. The workshop feels like it’s holding its breath, and you’re not a superstitious man, not really, but there’s some sort of pit solidifying in your gut. Something, as it often does with Dirk, as it has more often than not these past few weeks despite the way you’ve been trying to ignore it, feels  _ wrong.  _ The left side of the bed is cold until the early hours of the morning, your plate is empty by the time he picks up his fork, you’re out of sync and if you knew how to bring it up you would do anything to fix it.

Honestly, this might just be a prank. The infamous gambit doesn’t belong solely to your side of Earth C’s pantheon, and maybe this is Dirk’s way of trying to ease the hints of tension that have been seeping into your house as of late. Regardless, though, it’s not quite funny. “Dirk, this really isn’t funny,” you tell the silent room.

No answer. You take a step forward and then, there it is, so soft you almost missed it under the sound of your clunky footsteps - something rustling just a few rows of equipment deeper into the workshop. “Dirk?” 

No answer but silence. Your pace quickens as you head towards your best guess at the sound’s origin. It’s probably just an animal or something, Dirk’s probably upstairs laughing at this through the surveillance cameras he thinks you don’t know he has down here, but the pit in your gut only grows heavier and colder which each step you take. 

If Dirk is watching, that makes you a bit of a lab rat, and if you’re a lab rat, there’s a reward at the end of this cold, metallic maze, shelf after shelf after shelf, another rustle, there, your pace picking up, and if there’s a reward at the end of this maze, it isn’t the sight that greets you when you turn down the last row and see Dirk.

At first, the sight is a relief. Of course it is, there’s Dirk, upright and breathing and just playing a prank, hide and seek like the games you used to play with Brobot, there he is, the angles of his body still sending your heart into smaller subdivisions of the same tempo it’s been at for years now, his crooked posture begging for you to wrap your arms around him and pull him close and - there’s something in his hands. And not just  _ something _ , because  _ something  _ is a generic word that Dirk would tell you means a thing that is unspecified or unknown, but rather a living, specific, familiar sight, thanks to your film literacy. 

The halt in your footsteps must alert Dirk to your presence, because he looks up in your direction, eyes (of course) obscured by his shades, and winces with his entire body. He makes no effort to hide the noose in his hand nor the way it’s tied to one of the ceiling support beams directly over his head. 

Well, thank god you’ve always been a man of action over thought. You reach Dirk in a single, frantic heartbeat of a second, and the rope is ripped from his hands before he can get his first protest out.

“Jake-”

“What in the  _ blazes  _ are you doing?” You don’t recognize your voice. It’s an inhuman thing; it sounds along the same frequency as the realization that if you came down to check on Dirk just a moment later, he might have been gone, heroism and justice aside, that you might have lost the best thing that’s ever happened to you, that you have done something that has made him think that he can’t stay with you any longer. It’s a cliche, sure, but you know dying and you know it was not as painful as this. “Are you - have I - we’re supposed to be having dinner!”   


“I’m supposed to be dying,” Dirk snaps. You don’t recognize his voice either. It’s far too human for what you both are; it sounds like the creatures on the island used to if your first shot hit a lung or a cheek before your real target. His hands - shaking, unsteady in a way you’ve never seen them - reach out and wrench the noose back into his hands. It could be a symbol for his life, if you could think about that sort of thing right now and if it wouldn’t be the most ironic thing a Strider has ever done. 

“No, you’re not,” you snap back. Your voice is returning to you, slowly, and you grasp onto it as you continue, “You’re Dirk, and you’re my boyfriend, and you’re not allowed to die, and we’re going to, to -” You falter. You have no plan. What’s the plan for this? Where’s  _ Firmly Yanking Your Conditionally Immortal Boyfriend Off the Ledge for Assholes?  _

He sneers, but the malice in it doesn’t seem to be aimed at you. “We’re going to  _ what _ ?” 

You grab hold of the noose once more and pull it back towards you. Above, the beam it’s attached to groans. The pit in your gut has tilted on its side and started to feel a little bit like anger, a little bit like you need to latch onto Dirk and refuse to let him go until he stops this. “We’re going to take this fucking hullabaloo upstairs, and leave this blasted thing down here, and I’m going to hold onto you until you realize that there is no way I’m ever going to let go, capiche?”

You almost definitely pronounce capiche wrong. Dirk doesn’t correct you. Instead, he steps backwards, into the wall, hands up like he’s surrendering until you see the katana fall from his sylladex into place against his neck. “You don’t understand,” he says, something like a hiss and something like a sob, “I have to do this.”

And look, okay, you’ve seen Dirk in more ways than most people see each other, but you’ve never seen him like this. Action over thought, and a blast of capital-h Hope sends the katana clattering to the ground. The noise that’s wrenched from Dirk’s mouth disappears into the thud of your body slamming Dirk down onto the floor, one hand holding each of his wrists down and your legs straddling his stomach. It could be hot if it not for the situation. 

“Why?” you ask. It’s half-curiosity, half-stalling. There’s a plan starting to form in your head, perhaps a little too inspired by your current position but better than nothing, something that involves giving Dirk what he wants without letting him take the reins. “It wouldn’t stick.”

He wriggles under your grip, but you’re muscle where he’s all lean strength and he can’t get up. He settles for glaring at you as he says, “It would be Just. I think it’s pretty fucking despicable of me to off myself while my boyfriend’s cooking dinner, and I think you and paradox space are both going to agree on that.”   


“But  _ why _ ?” you press. 

Dirk turns his head, dropping it onto the cool concrete of the workshop and letting his shades etch a thin line. Carefully, you let go of his left hand, bring your free hand up to brush against his bared cheek, and wait. 

“I’m… not a good person,” he finally mutters. “And you’re going to be so much better off without me. I made you a bot to take care of the house and all of that sort of shit that I normally do, just without my… shit. It’s set to activate once I die.” 

That explains the tarp, at least, but you refuse to let him keep believing that the latter half of what he said is anything but contradictory to the former. “Dirk-” you start.

You don’t get another word in before he uses his free hand to grab you by the hem of your shirt (turn around, there’s a man on fire) and pulls you off of him. His katana is in his hand again within seconds. “You don’t get to talk me out of this,” he warns. 

The plan in your head solidifies just enough for you to sound believable when you say, “I’m not trying to,” as you knock the katana out of his hand and use just a bit of Hope to shatter it. 

Dirk scowls. “Yeah, I can see that.” He stumbles to his feet; you follow. 

“Just - “ You grab onto his wrist, your nails digging into his skin just enough to tilt his face up towards you instead of at the remnants of his sword on the floor. “I’m not exactly sure of how to handle all of this, but you’re not leaving, okay? I need you, not some robo-tomfoolery, and if your gams want to kick the bucket that much… just let me be in control, c’mon, we’re going upstairs.”   
  
You tighten your grip on Dirk just a little, think about how hard you’re hoping to be upstairs right now, and then you’re both standing in your bathroom in a flash of white light. Before Dirk can reorient himself, you push him onto the bed - roughly, that touch of anger hasn’t left, but not so rough that he can’t possibly imagine that you don’t care about him - and crawl on top of him, straddling him in the exact same way as you were earlier. 

“What the fuck are you doing?” Dirk says. It’s still acerbic, and maybe you’re just being optimistic, but some of the immediacy seems to be fading from his voice. 

You look down at him and close your eyes. God, you hope this works. “I don’t know,” you admit, “but I’m keeping you.”

He opens his mouth to argue, but the words, apparently, disappear when you briefly let go of one of his hands just long enough for you to toss his shades onto the floor. His eyes are wide and despite the way he’s been snapping at you, they’re scared. Dirk isn’t someone that’s used to his plans not going how he wants them to, and he’s certainly not someone that was expecting to still be alive right now. He could probably use a bit of time to get used to the situation, but that’s time you’re not going to give him, not right now. 

“You could’ve done it earlier, and I wouldn’t have been able to stop you,” you say. “Why didn’t you?”  _ Please let it be some sense of self-preservation.  _

Dirk refuses to meet your eyes. “It makes me worse if you see me do it, so there’s less risk of me coming back.”

“Plum, you can’t be worse if you’re not bad in the first place,” you point out. Maybe going soft will work, maybe he just needs someone to remind him that you love him more than ever you thought you could love anyone. His face is drawn up in a thousand emotions, and he still looks beautiful, and he only more firmly avoids eye contact when you tell him as much. “And you know, I think that you being so twisted up about whether or not it’d last in the first place is a dashingly good sign that you know you’re not as crooked as you think you are.”

The way Dirk’s face sinks is confirmation enough of that. “Well… that doesn’t matter. Resurrection or not, I can - I can try again, okay, I’ll do it as many times as I need to, I just - it’ll clear my head.”

Okay, okay, sure, you can work with this. Soft doesn’t seem to be working, but you can’t help but hold onto it for just a second longer as you lean in and press a gentle kiss to Dirk’s forehead. “If you have a mess in here, you can tell me, love,” you murmur. “I thought we agreed that we were going to actually talk this time around, and if we’ve gotten to this point, I don’t think we’ve been doing a sporting job, exactly.”

“What did you mean by being in control?” Dirk asks. It’s a weak enough subject change that you’re surprised you didn’t do it, but he’s not actively trying to escape or off himself at the moment, so you’ll take it. 

Okay. Time for five minute plans. You don’t say a word as you decaptchalogue one of your revolvers and a single bullet. Dirk’s throat  _ clicks _ audibly in perfect time with the  _ click  _ of the cylinder as it opens. 

“Are you -”   
  
“Shh,” you say. “Yes, if this is what you want, but you have to get it into that thick skull of yours that it’s not going to last first, okay?”   
  
Dirk’s eyes are locked on the gun, and there’s just enough of trepidation in them that you sort of regret your description of Dirk’s skull. It may be thick, sure, but that won’t be enough to stop a bullet if (when) it comes down to that.

It’s… concerning, in a way, that you’re so willing to do this. Yes, Dirk will come back, yes, you’ve killed enough things (never a person, never your  _ boyfriend _ ), yes, Dirk’s certainly no stranger to death either. And it’s concerning, yes, but your hands don’t shake as you drop the bullet into the fifth chamber. Fifth because it’s penultimate, with just enough time for false scares and just one chamber sooner than Dirk will be expecting. You snap the cylinder shut.

Dirk is silent. The room is silent. You slide your thumb up to the hammer and pull it back with a  _ click _ . The sound echoes in perfect time with the way Dirk twitches, just slightly. 

For a moment, he says nothing. You wait. You can practically see the math in his head - you’re in control, you’re holding a gun, you’re giving him this chance to speak, there are six chambers and he saw you decaptchalogue one bullet. Now, if there’s one thing that you’ve learned from being with Dirk for this long, it’s that control is everything to him. Control is how he shows he cares, always has been, and so you’re hoping against hope that this will show him that you care so fucking much.

“Did you actually load it?” Dirk finally says. His eyes haven’t left the gun for a second, and you can feel how tense he is underneath you.

“Sure as Sam Hill did,” you say, wiggling your fingers so that Dirk can see that they’re empty. You’re going to do this. 

The sound of Dirk’s throat working as he swallows is nearly as loud as the thoughts rushing in his head. “Why?”

You want to brush your hand across his cheek, to push that loose strand of hair off of his forehead, follow your fingertips with a kiss - but your hand is holding him down. Instead, you use the barrel of the gun to nudge his hair back. His entire body stiffens; his eyes widen; something in your gut twists and strikes like a match. 

“This isn’t going to last,” you tell him, pushing the gun into his forehead just a bit, just enough. Your finger falls onto the trigger. “Right, plum?”   
  
Dirk makes a strangled sound and doesn’t answer. His breathing is doing a funny sort of thing that you might misconstrue as fear if you didn’t know his near-orgasm habits so well - this isn’t it quite that, but it’s adjacent enough that you know he’s not going to flinch away. 

“Answer me, Dirk,” you say. Your voice is a little too gentle for the way the gun pushes even harder against his forehead, for the situation, for the fact that the minute he answers you genuinely you’re going to fucking kill him so that he can have his fucking cake and eat it too. 

“It’s-” he starts, but any following words seem to be lodged in his throat. There’s a bit of anger coming back into his eyes, that sense of  _ I had this under control what are you doing  _ \- but you refuse to acknowledge it. 

“Dirk.”

He scowls, impressively nastily considering the fact that he’s not resisting you at all, and mutters, “It’s not going to last.”   


He doesn’t mean it, obviously, doesn’t  _ believe  _ it, and you’re not doing this until there’s no chance you’ll lose him but you need to show you need business, and the way his eyes widen and his body jumps and this little, breathy gasp of a shriek leaves his throat when you pull the trigger is a good sign. He’s scared. He’s scared and the empty  _ click  _ is resonating through the room and you’re shaking just a bit with the adrenaline.

“You - you said you loaded it,” Dirk finally says. His voice is tight, controlled, but there’s no way for him to hide the way his eyes have changed. It’s funny, isn’t it, Dirk, how scary death is when it’s out of your control? It’s funny, isn’t it, Dirk, how scary it is to think the world might have one less Strider in it? Isn’t it so funny?   


“I did,” you say. “One bullet, six chambers, odds are ever in your favor, however you want to take that, but you’re not getting the real deal until you admit that you’re  _ good.”  _

His eyes narrow. You cock the hammer again.  _ Click.  _ “So, how long are we doing this?” you ask. “This isn’t going to stick, now is it, dear? You’re  _ good _ , you’re wonderful, you deserve good things, and jiminy croquet, Dirk, you know I love you.”   
  
The genuine intimacy and tenderness in your voice seems to actually unsettle him more than the gun now sneaking up under his chin does. His throat  _ clicks,  _ you don’t know whether a smirk or a kiss would be more appropriate right now, and you wait. 

“I love you too, you know that,” he protests, “and I’m not - that’s not - Jake, you’re the best thing I know, and I’m just ruining you, and -”   
  
You shove the gun up into the underside of his jaw, and his head knocks back against the solid wooden headboard. “And you’re the best thing I’ll ever know, and you’re  _ good _ ,” you insist. 

Dirk’s pupils are blown and his hips are doing something underneath yours - if this is actually turning him on, you’re going to fucking  _ kill  _ him later (ha, ha, there’s irony in there somewhere) - and, “Just kill me, okay? Or let me go and do it myself so that I don’t have to bother you.”   
  
You shake your head, move the gun (and by extension, Dirk’s head) back and forth in time. “I’m going to do this, and we both know you want me to,” you say, and it sounds more true with each passing second. Dirk’s hips tense, up, down, a quick little motion that you both pretend not to notice. “But you have to tell me that you’re good.”   
  
“Fine, fine, I’m fucking  _ good _ ,” Dirk snaps. He gives the word the wrong meaning but you pull the trigger anyway.

An empty  _ click.  _ Dirk’s hips jerk. His head hits the headboard again. His eyes are caught somewhere between self-preservation and resignation, and because you know he won’t be expecting it, you fire again,  _ click  _ of the hammer,  _ click  _ of the trigger, just one more empty shot left and then Dirk is gone. You don’t know where you’re going to aim that one yet. 

“Dirk."

All you get in response is panting, a frustrated, close-to-tears sound, and you take a deep breath. You’re getting there, you’re both getting there, your hand drops his wrist and comes up to caress his face and he makes no move to buck you off. 

“Dirk, c’mon, plum, we both know you’re just playing the ol’ scene kid shtick and caboodle, you know I love you and you know I only love good things. Just let me do this, okay?”   
  
“You can just do it, right now,” he says. His voice is broken, almost in the same way it was when you first found him in the workshop, but this time there’s no fight, just something you pray is acceptance. “I’m - I’m not bad.”   
  
Progress. This is working. You breathe a sigh of relief, lean in and stop yourself just shy of kissing Dirk. The gun is nestled in the space above his ear, the barrel flush to his thin hair. Thin hair, thick skull, “I’m not bad, okay, Jake,” and the last empty chamber  _ clicks  _ into the past. 

“You’re not bad,” you agree. “And if … if this is ever something you need, jumping jehoshaphat, Dirk, you can just ask. You know I’ll give you anything.”

He closes his eyes and tilts his face into your hand, pressing a soft kiss against one of your calluses. Your heart pounds, your finger slides up to the hammer. Control is care, control is love, but there are some decisions you can’t make for him.

“Where do you want it?” you ask. You’re going to do this, you’re going to do this.   


He opens his eyes, and they’re clearly surprised. “Um. I… forehead. That.”   
  
You nod. “Okay. This isn’t going to last, right?”

He nods in turn, once, and you lift the revolver and rest it against his forehead. You cock the hammer almost without thinking.  _ Click.  _ Dirk stiffens at the sound, his hips twitching just once, your finger falls to the trigger, and Dirk is gray and pink all over the headboard. 

You know he’ll come back. 

**Author's Note:**

> thanks so much for reading! feedback is always appreciated + prompts welcomed.


End file.
